How to Draw a Face in Coloured Pencil - Baby Portrait Drawing Tutorial

hello everybody welcome back to my
channel so in this video I'm going to be
going through how I drew this baby
portrait using color pencils and if you
guys want to see this in real time and
hear me talk through how I drew this and
all the colors I used all the techniques
I use in real time and follow along with
me then I have got all of the real time
tutorials available on my patreon now
and a link will be in the description so
you can check that out but anyway guys
let's get into the tutorial so the first
thing that I'm doing is I'm starting
with the baby's eyes and as you know by
now I always like to start with the eyes
and so I blocked him first the pupils
just use the black to block them in and
then I used a brown to blocking the
other shadowed areas like the upper
lashline and now I'm going in with some
gray colors to get in the darkest parts
of the iris even though the baby's eyes
were blue blue eyes tends have a lot of
gray in them not just blue and if you
use too much blue it will look too
artificial so try to use some Gray's in
there as well so I used a darker Gray's
go around the outside edge of the iris
which was the darkest part of the iris
apartment pupil and then I used a blue
color and a lighter blue to blend that
out I like to build up in layers and
then once I've added all my layers I
apply more pressure to the final sort of
layer so that it all looks really smooth
and to get rid of all of that white
grain one thing to notice about baby's
eyes are that they are quite a lot wider
and bigger than adult eyes so that's one
thing to notice about baby's portraits
when you're doing them is that the eyes
are a bit bigger and that's what makes
it look really like you fool and like a
baby so now I'm going in and doing the
white of the eyes and my main tip for
drawing white of the eyes in color
pencil is to add a lot of greys a lot of
people don't apply much gray shading
they just do it quite light whereas in
reality there's quite a lot of dark
Gray's in that white of the ice and make
sure you get them in and now I'm working
on the skin around the eyes and so the
skin was a lot of different tones of
some warm toned areas and some cool
toned areas so it's really important to
use a lot of different colors and to
layer them rather than just using one
color for the skin you need to add a
variety to make it look realistic
because in reality
skin doesn't just consist of one or two
colors there's quite a lot of different
shades in there and quite a lot of
different tones um a few my main tips
for drawing skin is to always have a
sharp pencil always apply really light
shadings to start with and go in
circular motions to try and fill in all
of the white grain of the paper never
apply a play lot pressure until the
final stages and just build up a lot of
different colors and then once you're
happy with the colors then blend it out
using a lighter pencil the two pencils
that I like to do my final blending with
as you can see me doing now is the buff
titanium which is more of like an
off-white creamy color and if you have
Prisma colors it would just be like the
cream tone just like an off-white color
so that it doesn't just make it really
light it still adds a bit of color to it
and so I used that to shade out and
blend the majority of the skin and then
for the really highlighted areas like
the brightest areas I will use the white
pencil to blend that out and burnish
that area so I like to layer the colors
using very light layers make sure that
you're not applying too much pressure on
the pencil because if you do that means
you'll have stubborn pencil strokes that
will be very hard to blend out when you
do the burnishing and now I'm going in
with the eyebrow and so baby's eyebrows
are very light they're very sort of
sparse and a lot of the time you can't
see a lot of the individual eyebrow
hairs so what I'm doing is I'm blocking
in the general direction that the hairs
are going in as you can see I haven't
done really thick eyebrows there's quite
a lot of areas where you can see skin
underneath and I also add layers over
the top and lighten them up so that they
blend more into the skin and they're not
so harsh and just like on top of the
skin I want to make it look like they're
blending subtly into the skin and then I
used my crafting knife to pull up some
hairs and like I said you can see more
of these techniques in real time on my
patreon if you want to because this
portrait took me 10 hours so it's going
to be going a bit fast so now onto the
other eye and I do the exact same
techniques I'm just layering all of
those different colors when the skin is
more cool toned I like to use the more
pink tone shades of skin colours like in
this case I was using like
Sienna's if it's more orange toned I
like to use the burnt ochres and if it's
more like yellow toned I like to use the
brown occurs if the skins got a bit of
green to it then I think the raw embers
are really good for that but what I
really recommend doing is do a little
color swatch of all of the colors that
you think you might be using and then
just get your reference photo and
compare your color swatch to the
reference photo and just pick the colors
that closest match that reference photo
so like I said building up those colors
and I'm blending it with the buff
titanium and the white pencil one thing
that is going to make baby's portrait
really really realistic is to make sure
that you're getting that really smooth
skin babies have extremely smooth skin
so you need to make sure that you're
doing really soft shading and really
nice smooth blending otherwise the skin
won't look right it's really really
smooth so make sure you're really
concentrating on applying the pencil
without any pressure just really lightly
layer and really practice that smooth
shading before you try and attempt to do
a baby portrait because if you have too
much texture in the skin it just won't
look right most of the time you can get
away with it if you're doing like an
adult portrait but with the baby's
portrait the skin is so smooth that you
can't really get away with it being too
rough looking so another thing that I
couldn't want to mention about baby's
eyes before I move on to the nose is
that when you're drawing the eyelashes
make sure that you don't use lots of
black because their eyelashes are really
light and so I like to use a brown color
rather than using black to do the
eyelashes otherwise they won't look
right because they'll be too dark and it
will look like they're wearing makeup
but anyway guys let's get onto the nose
so the first thing that I did was I got
in the nostrils which are the darkest
part of the nose and in most cases they
are going to be the darkest part of a
nose and so I used the brown tones and
some burnt sienna to get those nostrils
in and now I'm lightly layering all of
the different tones for the nose what's
really important is to make sure that
you haven't got lots of really harsh
outlines around the nose because with a
baby portrait like I said their skin
is really soft and that means the
transitions between the different
features is going to be really soft as
well so try not to outline the nose
really harshly really look at your
reference photo look at how the
different areas transition into each
other like for example the sides of the
nose they very subtly transition into
the rest of the skin so try not to make
it a really harsh outline really focus
on getting those subtle changes and
looking at the really subtle changes in
color so for this the nose was quite
light so I laid a lot of those similar
colors and I use the same skin colors
that I did for the skin around the eyes
and that's really important you don't
want to do all the different areas and
their skin to all look completely
different shades you need to use the
same sort of colors that you did for the
skin for the eyes so that it all kind of
gels together when you mix the different
areas together it will all look seamless
and you won't be able to tell where you
sort of did the different skin parts in
the different sessions of drawing that
you did so like I said now I'm going in
and I'm blending it out with the buff
titanium for the slightly just normal
areas and then the white for the
highlighted areas and when I'm blending
I use my pencil in the opposite
direction then I laid the initial pencil
layers down and this is so that you're
going in the opposite direction to the
initial pencil strokes and this means
that you're blending out the pencil
strokes and it means that you're getting
this really smooth look because you're
going against the pencil strokes that
you initially added in to counter them
so that you're kind of smudging them out
and blending them out so you can't see
them any longer so now once I blend it
out you will notice that certain areas
might have gone a bit too light so what
I do once I blend everything out for the
first time is I look at the reference
photo and I look at my drawing and I
just glaze other colors over the top to
make sure that the areas they're the
most shadowed are dark enough and I just
like to adjust the colors so that they
are really accurate to the reference
photo you don't necessarily have to get
the colors that you're using for the
baby skin exactly the same as the baby's
reference photo what's really important
is that you're getting your
and your highlights in the correct place
obviously you want your skintone to be
similar so look to see if it's cool
toned warm toned and the sort of under
base color of the skin but I'm saying is
it doesn't have to be exactly the same
shade to look realistic because if you
think about it if you were to put like
the reference photo and do like some
editing on it you know maybe add a
filter or slightly change stuff that can
change the color of the skin slightly
and it would still look like that baby
and realistic so you can to some extent
use different skin tones then the
reference photos slightly different
colors and it will look fine it will
look really good and you won't be able
to tell a difference so focus on getting
the contrast so the shadows and the
highlights and the values correct rather
than worrying about getting the exact
sort of skin colors exactly the same
because chances are it's going to be
very hard to match the exact skin tone
so now let's move on to the mouth and
the first thing that I did was I went in
with the black and I used that to block
in those really dark shadows inside the
mouth which were just like pure black
and then I went in with like the brown
to create some more of the shadows on
the tongue because I didn't want that to
be just black otherwise it would look a
bit flattened when you blend it out it
would just be a bit gray and then I used
some of the burnt sienna to go over the
whole thing and then I lifted the
highlights with and thread coronoid pink
which is just like a pink color and also
the white as well and now I'm going onto
the lips and I added a base color of
just this light pink and now I added the
shadows with the burnt sienna 50% so
it's really important with the baby's
lips to get that smooth look but also to
get the shadows and the highlights in
the correct place there won't be an
awful lot of texture in the baby's lips
there won't be a lot of like cracks and
too many creases and texture so it's
quite smooth looking which is quite
simple to do rather than having to add
lots of detail so just focus on getting
the base tone down on the lips and then
looking for a highlighter shade and a
shadowed shade and just use those
different shades to block him where the
shadows are and getting where the
highlights are there were still some
creases to the lips but not very many
not like saying adults lips would be
so try to keep it nice and smooth
otherwise again it won't look right the
whole thing with a baby's portrait is
everything is very smooth and very
subtly kind of graduated and
transitioning into each area so make
sure that you get that in especially
with a baby's portrait and you can't get
away with texture like you can with
other types of portraits everything has
got to be really smooth so again once
I've got the basics in I go in and tweak
different things get the colors as
accurate as I possibly can there's some
red tones so I like to use the color
russet add a bit more of a saturated
look to it and it's really important to
glaze different colors you might have
every color in and it looks fine but it
might be a bit dull so you can just make
it a bit more vibrant by adding some of
these like and truckroid pink or russet
color so like some more saturated colors
that you wouldn't necessarily use a lot
of but just a little touch here and
there really brings it to life and makes
it have that healthy looking glow and so
now I'm moving on to the skin and the
skin is so important to making a baby's
portrait because like I keep saying it
needs to be really smooth so the first
thing that I do is I go in with the
shadowed colors like the under base
colors and I just shade them vertically
down to get in some of the basic shadows
that isn't too many shadows in baby's
portrait while in this one anyway
so I just shaded them in I shaded the
other base tone colors in which was like
the burnt sienna temp Sun and burnt
ocher temp them and now I'm going in
with the buff titanium and you can see
I'm blending that in circular motions
and this gets a really really smooth
look one of the problems that a lot of
people have is that they will blend out
for the first time and then now try and
add lots more layers but or it will all
kind of just like come up and you'll get
that really waxy look and you'll start
to clump up a bit and it won't look
smooth anymore
so what I recommend is once you blend
out with that first layer with the
burnishing if you want to glaze and add
more colors over the top
I really recommend using the side of the
pencil because using the side of the
pencil
is really going to restrict the amount
of pressure that you're like putting
onto the layers that you've added like
if you use the point of the pencil
you'll be digging in and you're more
likely to get that texture and that waxy
kind of look build-up whereas if you use
the side of the pencil and just kind of
glaze that color over that layer then
you'll be able to maintain that smooth
look so it's really important to
maintain that smooth look with the
babies portrait so make sure that you're
not overworking areas try not to add too
many sort of layers try to get all of
your colors down and then blend it with
those kind of buff titanium and that
white and then you don't have to do much
else you might have to glaze a few more
colors add a few more shadows but you
want to have the majority done whilst
you've before you've got done that first
layer and blended that out you want all
of those colors to basically be in the
right place you don't want to do too
much tweaking after you've burnished it
so I'm moving on to the forehead and
there was some shadows around that
flower headband so I made sure I got
them in first and again I always like to
block in the shadows first so even if
they're just subtle shadows I like to
get them in and once I've kind of
lightly layered
those shadowed colors in and I used a
lot of gray for the shadow in this
portrait I go in with those base tones
and these base tones are colors that I
use throughout the entire portrait so
the Ben C and attempt sent and burnt
ocher temps n are two colors that I use
everywhere in this portrait and you want
to have those base colors to make the
portrait look kind of extra syncs with
each other so all the skin looks like
similar but obviously your shadowed
colors can be slightly different because
different areas might have different
sort of shadowed colors but I like to
add those base tones all over in exactly
the same places to allow it to look kind
of coherent with each other but then I
don't layer as much of those base colors
on the lightest areas I leave them quite
sort of clear of any pencil I add a tiny
bit but I leave them quite clear so that
when I blend everything out with my buff
titanium and the white pencil those
highlighted areas still
lighter than the rest of the skin so
once I completely are doing the forehead
I need to make sure that it blends
nicely in with the nose and the top of
the nose so I just made sure that I
added some white down to the nose to
blend those two areas together so now
let's work on the body and again same
process going in with those shadowed
colors I generally use the sepia which
is a brown tone and the raw Amber's to
get in the shadows because the skin has
that sort of greenish undertone to it
and gray undertone so I like switch
between the raw numbers and the French
Gray's which is like a warm gray if
you're using like prism colors or
polychromos and again once I've added in
those base shadow colors I then went in
with the base tones so that burnt oak
10% burnt sienna temps and adding that
everywhere you can see that it looks
quite messy but the key is I've not
pressed too hard on the pencil so even
if it looks messy I can blend all this
out really smoothly by going in the
opposite direction
then I've done the pencil strokes and
you can see that I've left certain areas
quite free of any color pencil so that
when I'm blending with this buff
titanium you'll see that these areas
that I haven't applied much pencil to
look highlighted they look like the
lightest areas so you've got that
natural highlights without having to
press really hard on your white pencil
to try and lighten it up again most of
the time you don't want to get the skin
too dark in the highlighted areas you
want to try and keep it as light as
possible so you don't have to really
work hard to brighten it up again and
risk damaging the paper by adding too
much force onto it and pulling up too
much of that colored pencil so now I'm
trying to blend the body in with the
neck by adding that sort of jawline area
and again that was a very subtle change
in color it was an earth sharp jawline
it was just a very subtle shadow to give
that look of the jawline so again I just
added more of a thicker version of
thicker sort of layer of that burnt
ocher temp scent and burnt sienna temps
M so now let's move on to the ear and
the ear is something that I find quite
tricky because of all of the little
so you've got to make it look realistic
and focus on so many little shadows and
highlights but again I focused on the
same method I added in the base tones
and the shadows using that again burnt
sienna temps n burnt ocher tempts them I
use these two colors because there was
cool toned areas which were more pinkish
and warm toned areas which were more
orange so I like to use those two colors
to get in those two different sort of
tones in the skin and as you can see I
left the highlighted areas quite free of
color so that they naturally look right
to the knee of areas so now let's move
on to doing the Hat and the first thing
that I'm doing is I'm actually adding
some skin colors and you might be
wondering if I'm doing hair why am i
adding lots of skin tones and that is
because with the baby's hair a lot of
it's quite sparse and you will actually
see some of the skin underneath so
instead of drawing the hair and trying
to work all of this skin in between the
hair that you've done it's easier just
to add a base layer of the skin and then
add the hair on top of it and then once
you've added all the hair strokes you
can see the skin naturally underneath it
and it gives a much more realistic look
but I didn't add the skin tone
everywhere just on the areas where the
hair starts to become quite sparse
I also added a layer of a more creamish
tone because when we use the knife to
pull up highlights you want to make sure
you have quite a light base tone because
it works by pulling up the wax and
revealing lighter layers so you want to
have your first layer as quite a light
layer so that's going to be what peeks
through when you use the knife to pull
up all the details but I'm going in with
the color sepia and black to create the
look of hair and I've done so many
videos and tutorials where I go through
how to draw a realistic hair so I will
link them up above and I'll add a
playlist of where you can look for more
tutorials on how to do your eyes how
strong noes have strong lips how to draw
hair because I've got tutorials for each
of these different features as well if
you want to check that out so like I
said the baby's hair can be quite sparse
and as you can see now once I'm layering
all of those little hairs Oh
that skin you can see how it works and
how much easier it would have been then
trying to add the skin between all of
the individual hairs it just looks a
mess and wouldn't have looked very sort
of realistic especially if there's quite
a lot of hairs it would just become very
fuzzy and muddy looking so I'm adding in
all of those base tones once I added the
black and sepia I went in with the
French gray just to kind of blend over
its move it all out and now I am going
to do the best part which is using that
crafting knife to add all of the little
individual details and so this is really
good because it gets the really fine
hairs and you can get a lot of detail
with this and really make it look more
realistic and bring the hair to life so
all I do is I just scratch with that
knife I'm not like digging it into the
paper I'm just like scraping off the wax
so you shouldn't rip your paper but I
definitely recommend trying this out on
scrap paper before you go in on your
portrait because a lot of people that
have tried this rip their paper because
they're not necessarily doing it right
so you will need to experiment with this
and so you can see that it really nicely
lifts up those layers to reveal some
highlighted strands of hair and you can
also add the detail in the skin so some
hairs that are kind of dry where hairs
that go across the skin to make it look
more realistic and add more detail to it
again but that's basically how I do the
hair like I said I've got more tutorials
exactly focusing on drawing hair and
making it look realistic and not just
really sort of flat and wiry so now
let's go on to the headband and I don't
want to spend too much time on this
because this isn't really something
that's going to be in every baby's
portrait but the way that I did this was
I just used a few different pink tones
so like a light pink and of white and I
just looked again at the shadows and the
highlights and I very much just looked
to those individual shapes and the
patterns throughout that sort of
headband to get it looking realistic and
then I went in with the flowers I used
those same colors I only used a couple
of colors but this and I just focused on
the shadows focused on the darkest areas
of those flowers I worked on each petal
at a time rather than blocking in the
whole sort of area
but you could get in a base there for
the whole thing and build up I just felt
like working on it petal at a time and
so I added a light layer of the pink and
I blended it with the white the areas
that were more highlighted and brighter
again I didn't apply as much color
pencil to so that these would stay light
and so I didn't have to work really hard
to brighten them up so when you're
drawing flowers I really recommend just
looking at it in terms of the shapes
rather than trying to picture it as a
flower because some of these shapes can
look really sort of random but if you
look at it as individual shapes and just
block them in once you get them all in
it will look a lot more realistic so
anyway a few final things to say about
babies portray a few key sort of
summarizing things is firstly make sure
that you're getting everything smooth
all of the transitions nice and smooth
the eyes are going to be a bit bigger
make sure that you do the white of the
eyes with a bit of gray in and also make
sure those eyelashes aren't too dark
don't do a jet black from root to tip
make sure you're doing the eyebrows not
too thick make sure that they look a bit
finer and a bit sparse and the eyebrow
hairs normally quite light and again
with the lips the lips aren't gonna have
too much texture to them they're not
gonna have too much cracks there's going
to be quite a lot of smoothness there
anyway guys that is it for this tutorial
I really hope you found it useful and if
you did make sure to subscribe and if
you do want the real-time tutorials like
I said they are available on my patreon
where you'll hear more about my
techniques and tips and tricks for how
to draw this portrait as well as apply
these techniques to all of the other
portraits so I'll leave a link actually
there's a card here that you can click
but anyway guys thank you so much for
watching check out these other videos if
you want to see more colored pencil
tutorials but I'll see you next time bye
guys